Miller, Glenn (1904-1944)

views updated

Miller, Glenn (1904-1944)

Bandleader, trombonist, composer, and arranger, Glenn Miller was one of America's most prominent pop-music icons of the big-band era of the 1930s and 1940s. In his brief eight-year professional career as a bandleader, Miller accomplished more than most other bandleaders did in a lifetime. Recordings sold by Glenn Miller and his Orchestra sold in the millions, superseding records previously established by Benny Goodman. Miller's lyric instrumentals, with their distinct grouping of clarinet and saxophones, ushered in a unique sound in popular dance-band music. His compositions and recordings included his theme song "Moonlight Serenade," as well as "In the Mood," Tuxedo Junction," and "Pennsylvania 6-5000," songs that symbolized the swing era for millions of people around the world.

Born Glenn Alton Miller on March 1, 1904 in Clarinda, Iowa, Miller moved with his family to Fort Morgan, Colorado, where he spent his formative years. His early musical exposure included listening to his mother play a pump organ at home, and his playing trombone with the local Bob Senter Orchestra. Miller studied briefly at the University of Colorado before embarking on a professional career in music. He later studied orchestral arranging with Joseph Schillinger. Miller did extensive work as a sideman with various groups, including stints with Ben Pollack in 1926-27, Paul Ash in 1928, Red Nichols in 1929-30, and the Dorsey Brothers in 1934. Miller was much in demand and well-compensated for his work as a studio musician in New York City in the 1930s. Along with bandleader Tommy Dorsey, Miller was also a frequent sideman with jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman. By 1935, Miller was the de facto leader, co-organizer, and sideman for Ray Noble's American band. Miller also admired the Jimmie Lunceford and Count Basie bands.

In 1937, Miller decided to form his own orchestra, but it disbanded when its recordings did not sell well, as did a 1938 successor that suffered the same fate. In 1939, Miller's third band obtained work at the prestigious Glen Island Casino in the suburbs of New Rochelle, New York. The band's next date was at the Meadowbrook in New Jersey. Both venues featured the orchestra in radio broadcasts, and by mid-summer the band had achieved a national following. In the same year, the band began a series of radio

[Image not available for copyright reasons]

broadcasts for Chesterfield cigarettes, reaching phenomenal peaks of popularity with a series of hit records, and winning the Down Beat poll for top "sweet" band in 1940-41. The band made two films—Sun Valley Serenade in 1941 and Orchestra Wives in 1942.

Glenn Miller and his band's recordings were not strong on jazz improvisation. A few soloists were featured on each release, although more of them appeared at live dance dates. An important addition to the band was the Modernaires, an excellent vocal quartet that provided the band with such hits as "Chattanooga Choo Choo," which sold a million records in the first six months of its release. Ray Eberle was featured on ballads such as "At Last" and "Serenade in Blue." Gunther Schuller, in his seminal study The Swing Era, observed that "The essence of Miller's formula was a kind of smoothed-out jazz: reliable, consistent, sufficiently predictable not to disturb but colorful enough to retain a mild element of surprise, and, above all, not too emotional or deeply expressive, i.e. an attractive patina rather than the real thing." Although Miller rarely played or arranged in later years in order to concentrate on achieving the widest public appeal for his orchestra, he employed the best of arrangers, including Bill Finegan, who arranged "Little Brown Jug," and Jerry Gray, who arranged "Pennsylvania 6-5000."

The band's first recordings in 1939 were very eclectic. The second recording date on Brunswick featured songs with a swing beat. Several hits followed the Glen Casino booking, including "Moonlight Serenade" (a Miller composition), "Sunrise Serenade," and "Little Brown Jug." "In the Mood," released in 1939, was Miller's most monumental hit. "Chattanooga Choo Choo," released in 1941, was the first record formally certified as a million seller.

The Miller sound permeated the popular music of the time, and until this day it remains the most nostalgically evocative of the Swing Era. While not a style or genre, the Miller sound was so distinctive, thanks to its unique and skillful use of the band's reed section, that listeners could instantly identify the sound as his. This distinctive sound featured Wilbur Schwartz's fervent and throbbing clarinet over four saxes. Another Miller trademark was the repetition of a riff until it would softly fade away and then suddenly return at full volume with the cycle repeated. Each contrasting texture (reeds or brass) was tied to a dynamic level.

In September of 1942, as a gesture of American patriotism, Miller entered the Army Air Force, leaving behind an extremely lucrative career as a bandleader. His earnings had been estimated at $100,000 per month from recordings alone. "I, like every American, have an obligation to fulfill…. It is not enough for me to sit back and buy bonds… " was Miller's explanation in a public statement that astonished the music world. Once in uniform, he proceeded to form the war's most famous service band, an all-star Army Air Force Band consisting of forty-two pieces, including a nineteen-man jazz component comparable to his civilian band plus one French horn and a twenty-piece string ensemble. The band was based in New Haven, Connecticut, and in the spring of 1943 initiated a series of weekly coast-to-coast Air Force recruitment radio broadcasts. In the spring of 1944, orders came for the band to go to England. The band that was chosen to go overseas was augmented with three arrangers, a copy-ist, and five singers. The band played in England, broadcasting over the BBC.

On December 15, 1944 on a small plane from London, Miller headed to Paris, liberated that summer, to make arrangements for the band's arrival there. The plane disappeared in flight. After Miller vanished, his death was mourned internationally and he was honored as a war hero. His band continued playing in Paris under the direction of Jerry Gray and Ray McKinley for a six-week engagement that was extended to six months because of its popularity.

After the band returned to the United States, Tex Beneke kept the band and its legacy alive with a new group called The Glenn Miller Band with Tex Beneke. In 1953, the Glenn Miller Story, a film vaguely based on his life, was released by Hollywood. Beginning in 1956 and for a decade thereafter, a band sanctioned by the Miller estate toured the United States and internationally under his name and under the direction of Ray McKinley. Miller's short but rich career left a permanent legacy of lyric instrumentals and a distinct sound that evokes the lively musical style of the late Depression and World War II years. During the 1970s, the lines "Boy, the way Glenn Miller played/Songs that made the hit parade…" were heard by millions each week from coast to coast, sung by Archie and Edith Bunker as a theme song to open their All in the Family sitcom. That Glenn Miller had been selected to represent the danceable, singable, hummable music of the good old days so idolized by the Bunkers came as no surprise to those of a certain age who believe that American popular music lost its way in the raucous, post-World War II years.

—Willie Collins